Overall compliance status of venues was full compliance 6% (95% CI 1.7, 14.6), partial compliance 63% (95% CI 50.1, 74.2), non-compliance 31% (95% CI20.6, 43.8). Indicators showed that more than half (55%) of the venues displayed ¡® no smoking ¡¯ signage, 7% signage compliance, 40% smoking indoors and 36% having ashtrays/ashbins present. When viewed by location, more venues in the tourist area were non-compliant (57%; 95%CI 19.6, 49.6) compared to the non-tourist area (28%; 95%CI 12.1, 49.4), provided significantly more ashtrays/ashbins (p = 0.03752) and were plagued with challenges of active smoking nearly twice as many times as venues within the non-tourist area (50% vs 28%).
CONCLUSIONS:
Full compliance with the smoke-free legislation is very low in Barbados among hospitality venues. Training programmes targeting operators and night-timesurveillance are critical to raising the level of conformity to the legislation.